Friday, May 30, 2014

The main point of this prison-style meatloaf video is to
show you what happens when you make meatloaf like your grandparents did. And no, I'm not accusing your relatives of spending time in the joint. During
the Great Depression this type of dish was a popular strategy for stretching
what little meat you had, into as filling a meal as possible.

As times got better, people went back to meatier versions,
and now only low-budget, high-volume food service operations feature this
culinary dinosaur. I did an Italian meatball-inspired version, which was quite
nice, but this method will work with virtually any meatloaf recipe.

Most modern meatloaves call for about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of dry
crumbs per two pounds of meat, and here we’re using 1 1/2 cups. It makes a
significant difference in the texture, producing something much softer and
moister. While not as "meaty," this does make for an interesting alternative to play around with. I'm looking at you, family of 10.

As I say in the video, I decided to spike my tomato sauce
with too much balsamic vinegar, which rendered it not great. So, if you’re
going to follow this recipe, just use a regular pasta sauce, or your favorite
meatloaf glaze. I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Chef John, I think you stole my meatball recipe and loaf-ified it. I never realized my bread proportion was high by modern standards, but I guess that's the kind of meatball I grew up with, so I stick to it.

By the way, have you ever added a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce to your meatloaf or meatball mix? I think it makes for better flavor. Can't go wrong with umami, although that deliciously hefty mountain of parmesan certainly gives you a head start on that!

I use crushed saltine crackers to about 3lbs of ground burger and ketchup goes on top the last 30 minutes or so. That's how I was raised eating it and that's how I make it. Of course it must have bell peppers and onions too.

I've always used this ratio of 1-1/2C breadcrumbs to 2# meat. My mother, who grew up during the depression, didn't cook fancy, but this is one of the dishes she taught me to cook when I was small. I do however, now use 1# bulk breakfast sausage and 1# ground chuck as well as a seasoned bread crumb for stuffing mixture as I think it's made the whole thing a lot tastier.

I made it tonight. Really good, the tomato sauce is a great addition to a regular meatload. However, be careful! I used Whole Food Market's breadcrumbs, which thin. After 20 minutes the milk was completely gone and not squizzable. It had become a paste that was nearly impossible to mix with the meat and the rest of the ingredients.

It didn't completely ruin the meatloaf but there were a few big chunks of breadcrumb paste in my slice that were not delicious.

My advice: more milk or less crumbs if they are very very finely crumbed.

I really appreciate your modesty in some of your videos. The "I didn't like the balsamic tomato..." is very helpful. I like that you are able both try new things and appreciate the rest of the recipe and try to move on to make the recipe better next time. :)

I really enjoyed this meatloaf. Prison kidding aside, I would cook this in place of the typical dry meat-only loaf. I also enjoyed the comment about the fastfood industry, and how they "use breading" in their hamburgers. Not sure if this is proven, but makes sense to me.

I found the bread crumbs to be bland so I used Rotel tomatoes and chilies to add to the bread crumbs instead of milk. Just make sure your meat is lean so you don't end up with a casserole dish full of grease. Next time I will try oats as a filler.

Dear Chef John:Thank you for making my meatloaf failure a thing of the past. Since mine always come out hard and crumbly I followed your advice to the letter and used the meat thermometer. It was juicy, light, flavorful yet subtle. I used a large can of Cento crushed tomatoes and it was way better than ketchup! I let it rest a day (because I made two dinners at the same time). Thanks for saving my family from a rocky meatloaf :) lol

Dear Chef John:Thank you for making my meatloaf failures a thing of the past. Since mine always come out hard and crumbly, I followed your advice to the letter and used the meat thermometer. It was juicy, light, flavorful yet subtle. I used a large can of Cento crushed tomatoes and it was way better than ketchup! I let it rest a day (because I made two dinners at the same time). Thanks for saving my family from a rocky meatloaf :) lol

Hello Chef John! I was wondering how exactly did you get these bread crumbs? And what kind of bread was it? How was it broken down? Thank you! Can't wait to try this recipe since all your recipes rock!!!

Hi Chef John. Love your videos. Those of us who keep kosher cannot (as you probably know) add the grated cheese to the mixture. Seems like we're missing out. I've tried your meatloaf recipe with the pureed vegetables and it was great. Is this worth doing without the cheese? Or should we stick with the pureed vegetables?

Currently waiting on this to finish in the oven. I had the same issue with un-squeezable bread crumbs (my fault) and skimped on cheap Parmesan cheese. I've never had parmigiano reggiano and I know I'm missing out but I'm still evolving. Chef John, thanks for yet another entertaining and informative video.

Mmmmmm so good! I made this meatloaf but with Chef John's Cramy Mushroom sauce from another meatloaf recipe. I used regular champignon mushrooms (what I had on hand) fresh herbs from my window sill, and a splash of cooking Sherry. And beef.from a local prize bull that lost his spunk. Great recipe! So simple to make.Thanks Chef!

THANK YOU, CHEF JOHN!!!! I followed your recipe nearly to the letter - I added a splash of steak sauce into the mix...I did make my own Sunday sauce to pour on top and of course, I used Italian San Marzano tomatoes, so your killer loaf + my killer sauce = EPIC good meatloaf! Muaw The hubby RAVED!!!

So I just made this takes longer than and hour and fifteen minutes and I dunno if I added too many breadcrumbs or if it's the type I used from progreso but my meatloaf came out really really mushy I'm literally still cooking it and had to raise the temp because I'm fricken starving this thing needs to get done cooking dammit.

Ehrmagherd! Best meatballs I've ever made! EVER! Not a meatloaf I know, but I've used this twice now, and now must make bigger batches because everyone loves them. And Sandy, thanks for the worstchedrer...wersterchire, whatever suggestion to add Lea & Perrin's sauce. Made them even better

I actually used this recipe as a way to come up with a completely different meatloaf.

My wife wanted to bring her nieces over for a sleep over, so I decided to make a meatloaf, but didn't feel like grocery shopping for all the items.

I did everything you did in place of the ingredients I substituted mentioned below.

I had 2 lbs ground lamb instead of beef. I had halloumi cheese instead of parmigiano or salt (the halloumi is very salty on its own). Didn't have breadcrumbs, but had bread. Canned Evaporated milk, but no milk. I had a huge amount of fresh mint instead of parsley. And finally, I had no tomato sauce... so I made a mint glaze the lamb meat loaf

I used about 2 cups of bread in place of 1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs with 3/4 cup evaporated milk, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon worcestire sauce, and 1 tablespoon dijon mustard (making a total of 1 cup). I put it all through the blender until it was mushed well.

I used the fresh mint in place of parsley.

I mixed all the other ingredients together as you did, but then noticed I had a little less than 1/2 cup of fresh cranberries and felt that the flavor of the sour cranberries would compliment the fatiness of the lamb and would help calm the saltiness that the halloumi would bring. So I threw that in there too and mixed it into the ground meat. I cut the halloumi into threes so that I can place it into the center of the meatloaf and assembled the meatloaf into a sort of log that wrapped around the halloumi. I placed it into the oven and then realized I didn't have a sauce of any sort to glaze the meatloaf and so while it was roasting I figured out a solution and made a mint glaze using honey, a big handful of mint leaves, apple cider vinegar, and a bit of orange zest. I put through a food processor and it was almost like a mint jelly/glaze type of consistency.

I managed to come up and execut this solution within 15 minutes of the time I put the meatloaf in the oven. I took out the meatloaf and poured over part of the glaze on it and made sure it was coated throughout, and then I put it back in the oven... then I would take out the meatloaf every 15 minutes and brush the rest of the glaze on there until the meatloaf was fully cooked through.

It was ready and I served it with some wilted spinach with garlic & butter... and had a cherry tomato salad with balsamic vinegar.

You may be wondering what the outcome was though with the little nieces coming over, and well they approved of it and loved it. These kids are little foodies and appreciate real food. Just wanted to share this with you on how this recipe helped influence something completely new. I hope you have a chance to try out my version! Thank you for sharing your Chef John!! :D

I'm really pigging out on your recipes lately, just made this, I was a bit worried because my milk-soaked bread crumbs turned into a bowl of heavy modeling clay, like plasticene -- and the internal temperature went a bit too high -- but it's fantastic!

I've actually used this recipe in order to make meatballs, and each time it comes out fantastic. Plus, if you are like me and gluten free, you can substitute 1 1/2 cups of re-hydrated TVP for the breadcrumbs. It comes out super moist just as if you had used breadcrumbs!

Can't wait to try this! I can see why the balsamic didn't work well with the sauce, but points for experimentation - but more than I got for trying raspberry vinaigrette as a chicken marinade forever known in my house as the "flamingo chicken incident" by some factions, and others insisting to this day I made them eat flamingo kabobs.

I usually do a mix of ketchup & Worcester sauces for meatloaf. Plain marinara would be great for this. Going to try it!

This is probably super-super old and no one is watching this, but why do you soak the breadcrumbs in milk specifically? It seems like an opportunity to add flavor, so why not something like the sauce you're going to glaze the meatloaf in (perhaps thinned out, of course, but something to add flavor) or something along those lines.